


Take Me to the Riot (Leave Me There)

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-02
Updated: 2010-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with the Vitamin D.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me to the Riot (Leave Me There)

It started with the Vitamin D.

The high was contagious, and for once in her life, her body was moving just as quickly as her mind and she promised herself:  _I’ll only take a few tabs when I need a boost._  She started needing a ‘boost’ every day, because with Glee and keeping a perfect grade point average and washing the Slushie out of her favorite sweater, her sheer willpower wasn't always enough to get her out of bed in the morning and onto the elliptical.

Like acetaminophen, though, it stopped working and she started building a tolerance. The morning she swallowed a pill and chewed half a breakfast bar, she didn't feel her energy kick in by seven-thirty, like it should. Instead, she felt sluggish and tired and she almost flubbed her English exam.

That’s how it started, really, because failure is unacceptable.

\---

She does a little bit of everything: speed, meth, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, always searching for the next high; always using until it stops working. She tries smoking once, but she read somewhere that it turns teeth yellow and she’ll never get on Broadway that with yellow teeth.

 _It’s not a serious problem_ , she tells anyone who has the nerve to ask.  _It’s just a little pick-me-up._

 _Drink coffee like the rest of us_ , Santana had snarled once, that last summer in Lima when Rachel had driven her car into a tree, head on. Rachel had taken something new that Karofsky charged her an arm and a leg for, and as soon as she stumbled out of the car, she’d panicked and called the only person she could think of.

Santana had taken one look at the totaled vehicle, swore loudly in a language Rachel hadn’t understood, and ushered Rachel into the car, not talking the entire ride back to Rachel’s house.

Quinn had been waiting at her house, sitting on the front steps with her hands folded over her knees. She had taken one look at Rachel – a cut on the forehead from the steering wheel, easily hidden by her hair, and a long gash from her inner elbow to halfway down her forearm – and shook her head sadly, leading her inside and cleaning her off.

 _S’okay, baby,_  Rachel said.  _I’m fine_.

Quinn wants to tell her – after the fourth time Santana brings her home, and the one time she has to make the shameful drive to the Lima County Prison – that  _no, Rachel, you’re not fine._

\---

It gets worse when they get to the city, because it’s bigger and better and Rachel can get lost in the alleyways where slick-haired guys in fake leather jackets press little white packets into her hand and take the money she was supposed to use to buy milk.

 _I don’t even know you_ , Quinn screamed, at least once a week, when they first moved. She stopped screaming it after a while, because Rachel never really heard her anyway; Rachel never hears anything anymore.

\---

 _Leave her_ , Santana instructs over the phone.  _Leave her, and you can come out here_.

 _Come to California_ , Brittany begs when Quinn stops answering Santana’s phone calls.  _Come live with us for a while, please_.

Quinn stops answering Brittany’s calls too, because they don’t understand.

Rachel is  _Rachel_  sometimes and it’s enough to make Quinn want to hold on; makes Quinn want to stay just another day, just in case.

Just in case Rachel crawls under the covers on Sunday morning, smiling wide and smelling like mango, instead of the Bronx; just in case Rachel remembers that this is their five year anniversary; just in case Rachel kisses her and Quinn curls her tongue around the back of Rachel’s teeth and only tastes peppermint toothpaste; just in case Rachel decides that Quinn is enough and she doesn’t need anything else.

So Quinn stays and eventually, both Santana and Brittany just stop trying.

\---

 _I got you babe,_ Rachel slurs, one leg hanging off the couch.  _And you got me_.

 _That’s not how the song goes_ , Quinn says patiently. Rachel grins and shakes her head and rolls off the couch, crawling across the living room floor, tugging at Quinn’s legs.

She smiles and Quinn sees  _Rachel_  – seventeen and on her way to something big, that look in her eyes that says she knows she good enough to get what she wants.

Quinn smiles back and closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see the bruises in the crook of Rachel’s elbow and she lets her fingers trace places the drugs don’t get to: the back of Rachel’s knee, her palm, the line from Rachel’s ear to her throat, the inside of Rachel’s thighs. Her mouth follows the same path, her fingers dipping and pushing and when Rachel tenses, her head thrown back and her neck exposed and her hands pulling at Quinn’s hair, Quinn sees  _Rachel_  – eighteen and on a natural high from taking Nationals, that look behind her closed eyes that Quinn knows means  _we did it, we really did it_.

Then Rachel stops panting and starts moving and her hands are heavy and hot against Quinn’s stomach, thighs, chest, ankles and Quinn knows Rachel didn’t always move this way, but then her breath is catching in her throat and it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that Rachel curls around her, one hand low on Quinn’s hipbones, the other wrapped around Quinn’s neck; what matters is that Rachel is there when Quinn closes her eyes and she’s there when she opens them again.

\---

Quinn keeps her cell phone by her bed and each week, ten percent of her paycheck is cashed and kept in the closest, behind a pile of towels that Rachel doesn’t even know exists, just in case something happens; just in case she gets that two am phone call.

Rachel stumbles through the doors at all hours, smelling like boys and beer and perfume neither of them owns, and she slides into bed and it takes Quinn everything – every memory, every possibility of the future, every hope – to not slide away towards the cool side of the bed.

 _I’ll get better_ , Rachel whispers almost every night.

 _No you won’t_ , Quinn stops saying when Rachel stops trying to convince her otherwise; just keeps saying, once,  _I’ll get better_.

It’s Quinn’s lullaby now, instead of Rachel, sixteen and ambitious, singing  _Hallelujah_ ; she can’t fall asleep without hearing, once,  _I’ll get better_.

If Rachel keeps saying that, there’s a chance that she might actually mean it, one day.

Besides the shell of who Rachel used to be, that’s all Quinn has to hold onto at night.


End file.
